Showed YOU, Didn't I?
by KinoFille
Summary: In which expectations are overturned. LL angst, just to see if I can pull it off.


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**Disclaimer:** Oh, honey, if I owned them we would have had Shirtless!Luke in the Pilot episode.

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**A/N:** My attempt at L/L angst. Big props to the TwoP FanFiction peeps for the motivation.

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Showed _You_, Didn't I?

When Lorelai was in the fourth grade, her homeroom teacher made everyone in the class stand up and say what they wanted to be when they grew up. All of the other girls wanted to be nurses, or teachers, or Nadia Comeneci. When Lorelai's turn came, she stood up and proudly announced that she wanted to be Stevie Nicks. Miss Cranford, who was no doubt aghast that the eight-year-old daughter of a prominent Hartford family would have even heard of the lead singer of a druggie rock band, simply smiled. _That's nice, Lorelai, _she said condescendingly. At eight years old, Lorelai didn't know what the word 'condescending' meant (she wasn't Rory, after all), but at that moment she was seized by the urgent need to Show. Miss. Cranford. And five years later, when she sang 'Rhiannon' at the school talent show, some small part of her brain was shouting, _Ha! Take that, Miss Cranford!_

Lorelai had always thrived on defying people's expectations. She loved nothing more that to flip the world the metaphorical bird and say, _Showed you, didn't I?_

When her mother told her she'd regret wearing the green roller-disco outfit to her fourteenth birthday party, she wore it anyway—and had an awesome time. At summer camp, when Christopher and Digger told her she couldn't swim out to the pier and back in under three minutes, she did it in two minutes and thirty-seven seconds.

When she found herself, at seventeen, the mother of a ten-month old and suffocated by a world that told her that The Only Right Thing to Do was to marry the baby's father, she took off without backward glance. And contrary to everyone's expectations, she did not end up a welfare mother living in a trailer park in East Hartford. She worked hard, built a successful business, and raised a happy, well-adjusted daughter with whom she had a real relationship. (Okay, maybe they were a bit co-dependent, but it's not like they were going to start doing mother/daughter red carpet commentary at the Oscars any time soon).

She _showed them_.

So, when Kirk caught Luke and Lorelai making out in the Gazebo at 2:00 in the morning and basically outed them to the town, Lorelai knew what everyone was thinking. It was behind Patty and Babette's smiles when they asked about her "darling hunk of man." It was in Sookie's watchful eyes the night that Lorelai, agitated and distracted, stayed working at the Dragonfly past midnight—and it was in the relief in Sookie's face when she found out that Lorelai had simply been upset over another fight with her mother. It was even in Rory's voice when Lorelai would come home after being with Luke. There was always the tiniest hesitation, after the briefest visual assessment—a pause so minute that only a mother could pick up on it—before Rory would ask, "So, how was your night?"

No one ever said a word, but Lorelai knew what they were thinking. Lorelai Gilmore, the Two- Month Cha-Cha Champion (sorry, Patty!), was bound to break the heart of Luke Danes, the decent, loyal man who'd loved her since before Ross had loved Rachel. She couldn't blame them, really. The whole town had seen what had happened with Max and Christopher and Jason, and Lorelai had become Stars Hollow's own Runaway Girlfriend. She supposed that somewhere, maybe in the back room of Doose's, Kirk and Patty were taking bets on how long it would take Lorelai to freak out and take another road trip.

The truth is, when Luke first kissed her that night at the Dragonfly, she _had_ been a little freaked out. For all of about fifteen seconds, she'd been confused and overwhelmed by the way the world could just turn itself inside-out without any advance warning whatsoever. But the confusion was almost immediately replaced by a sense of certainty she hadn't felt since she'd packed up Rory and fled her parent's house eighteen years earlier. _This is it_, she'd thought as she reached to kiss him back. _This is the whole package, right here in front of me._

That summer, Lorelai was happier than she'd remembered being since she'd been five and seen that first magical snowfall sent just for her. Luke was another miracle. He was the first man she could truly stand still with, and she loved him.

She told him so the night he brought over a whole apple pie from the diner and sat through an entire _I Dream of Jeannie_ marathon with her. He stared into her eyes, stroking her hair, then kissed her softly and said he loved her, too.

Lorelai never told anyone, but one Saturday morning in July she found herself standing in the back yard, staring at the chupa and imagining it in the town square, decked out in flowers and ribbons. She would wear a beautiful, simple white dress, and Rory would have flowers in her hair. Luke would look devastatingly sexy in his dark suit, just like he had when he'd waltzed with her at Liz's wedding. Sookie would do the food, Westin's would provide the cake, and Kirk would deejay the reception. The whole town would turn out to see the Happy Ending of a local fairy-tale. The Diner Man and his Crazy Lady. They'd be just like Prince Charles and Lady Di.

In hindsight, that probably wasn't the best comparison.

Rory went back to school at the beginning of August. Lorelai was going to miss her, but a part of her was looking forward to having some grown-up playing-house time with Luke. An even bigger part of her wanted to ask him to move in with her, but she wanted to wait until the time was right to bring it up. As it turned out, the time never was quite right.

At first the change wasn't drastic, just something vaguely unsettling. Everything was great for the first couple of weeks after Rory left. That first night, they 'christened' almost every room in the house (except Rory's, of course), basking in the freedom to have mad, passionate sex anywhere they wanted without worrying about someone walking in on them.

A couple of weeks later, Lorelai suggested driving into New York for Labor Day weekend. Luke, who had been moody and distant all week, snapped that, sure, he'd love to up and close the diner on the biggest tourist weekend of the year just to drive into a hot, crowded city to stay in an over-priced hotel and eat pretentious food at over-rated restaurants_. And while she was at it, did she want him to close for Arbor Day, too?_ Lorelai was stung at his rant, but chalked it up to the heat and overwork.

When Luke began forgetting their daily lunch phone call a couple of weeks later, she told herself he was just busy.

When he started rolling over and going to sleep as soon as they got into bed, she told herself he was just tired—and who wouldn't be, working fourteen hour days seven days a week?

She told herself the same thing when he began spending more and more nights at his apartment.

But then came the Tuesday night in the middle of October when Lorelai lay in bed alone and realized that she and Luke had gone eight whole days without being alone together or even having an actual conversation. And when she threw her coat on over her Strawberry Shortcake pajamas and walked through the town square and beat on the diner door and saw the guilt and wariness in his face as he let her in, she knew.

Knowing, however, wasn't the same as hearing it said out loud. So, as she watched him pour her coffee and noticed that his eyes never quite met hers, she asked the question she'd been avoiding asking for weeks. At first he didn't say anything; he just picked up a dishrag and began wiping at an invisible stain on the counter.

But if there was one constant in their relationship, it was that, sooner or later, Lorelai always managed to get the truth out of Luke. This time was no different. After a few minutes of stuttering and _I can't . . ._ and _It's too . . ._ he finally came out and told her. Afterward, Lorelai could never figure out if she was more shocked that he had dumped her, or that he'd used almost the exact words he'd used years earlier to describe his relationship with another woman.

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It's just not how I thought it would be.

Somehow, Lorelai managed to survived the next few weeks. Rory came home every chance she got, and Sookie kept bringing her huge plates of pot roast and thermoses of zucchini soup. Even Emily took Lorelai into New York one Saturday for a spa day at Elizabeth Arden. Somehow, right before Thanksgiving, she even managed a shaky, awkward stop in the diner for a to-go cup of coffee.

But through it all, there was one thought that sustained her more than Elizabeth Arden facials or coffee or the Ben and Jerry's Rory had thoughtfully stocked in the freezer. Everyone had been so sure that _she_ would be the one to break _Luke's_ heart.

Well, she showed them, didn't she?


End file.
